Ask HN: Is a blog clever marketing or just a waste of time? - <AUTHOR> I am one guy with a web app which makes $14k per year. Is having a blog alongside my website clever marketing or just a waste of my time? <comment><USER2> There isn't one answer. Just as there isn't for having a social media presence.

The main reason to start a blog should be having something interesting to say, on a regular basis; _something that appeals to your market_. A message that either converts into sales or (if a service) converts into an impression you know what you're talking about.

The SEO benefit isn't automatic. Just having more pages about something on your website doesn't turn into positive SERP. It only helps if people in your industry share it around, discuss it. And that not only depends on the quality of your message but also how "bloggy" your audience is.

I have clients whose market is furiously corporate and they insist on blogging. It's just such a dry topic, there's nothing but a "we're a real company" benefit, and even that isn't obvious.

And that leads to the biggest issue here. It's often not easy to see if you're wasting your time. It's easy to throw terms like "sunk cost fallacy" around but it really applies here. Plus there is auxiliary value from blogging, some people enjoy writing.

But if your time is finite and not worthless, focus on finding an audience that directly feeds into your bottom line.

<comment><USER2> I'll add that I agree with the others re: bad blogs.

A blog that sees little activity or insight does more harm than good. One that misjudges the customer would also do harm. A corporate client doesn't want to read about the results of the weekly office water pistol fight.

<comment><USER3> Company blogs with badly written articles about something completely unrelated to the business are just great.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Your blog is one of the best sources to get new traffic for your app. Search content marketing if you're not doing it already. I knew a client who go at least 20 signups per day using a blog post that ranked #1 on Google.

Of course your content has to be amazing and needs a few backlinks from industry leaders or authority sites. Also the most important part of your blog post is the bottom section where you have your call to action to convert the reader into a subscriber, so don't ever use a generic click here type CTA.

E.g. If your blog post is about 10 ways to lose weight, then add a resource box below which says "It's time to get started, download this FREE time-line pdf I prepared for you which helped me and 1000 members of this website lose over 10 lbs in 22 days" and bam.. there you have a new signup!

P.S. Goes without saying but you must give good advice. You have to win their trust, the article, the pdf must give them what they're searching for (give them 80% and remaining 20% after payment).

<comment><USER5> Yeah but how much did your client pay to get that ranking, now many years of blogging, etc. You have to take into account all the people who also tried but failed. One successful example does not prove it's worthwhile.

<comment><USER6> It can really depend on the niche. For some niches, it's basically as simple as "write an article, and you'll be #1". For others, it's a case of "more money than you'll earn in your lifetime is spent each year fighting for this spot"

Obviously, though, the rewards in the former are far lower. But, it certainly means it's worth trying one article to see how big the rewards are. Basically just search like a user would, and see if the results are satisfying. If none are, then it should be straightforward to rank #1 or near the top.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are 2 main strategies imo.

1\. A blog that makes you a thought leader. People will like you, check out what you're doing, and perhaps start using your app. This is the typical way to go for b2b, or if you have a big ego :) Another pro is that if you change your app, you still (may) have your readership.

2\. A blog that extends the content of your app. This fundamentally is a set of landing pages that improve your SEO. One common strategy is to talk about problems that people may have, and that your app solves. Whether you want or not to be too explicit about your app it's a matter of tastes.

<comment><USER8> > A blog that makes you a thought leader

I keep hearing that, but... Has anyone here actually seen it working?

Not nitpicking, just looking for actual examples to learn from.

<comment><USER9> The list is practically endless:

Joel on Software, patio11, DHH, Seth Godin, Tim Ferris, countless SEO blogs, and so on in increasing order of cringiness.

It is the whole modern melting of personality/advice/authority/promotion .

Some are really sincere some are really good at faking it.

<comment><USER8> OK, thank you.

For these guys the blogging seems nearly a full-time job though. I wonder if it's realistic to get there with a small slice of time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Don't: "Have a blog."

Do: Answer highly relevant, frequently asked questions in such a way that people will either find you through a search engine or impulsively share your content.

<comment><USER11> > Answer highly relevant, frequently asked questions in such a way that people > will either find you through a search engine or impulsively share your > content.

This is excellent advice for anyone starting an online business.

People new to running an online business too often neglect the approach you suggest. And yet, it is much better than trying to get lots of upvotes for a 'launch' on Product Hunt, Hacker News, and Reddit.

The problem is, producing good content doesn't give an immediate thrill. It takes time and persistence to see the payoff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A lot of blog articles out there = fluffy content on topics tangentially related to the product or service.

Instead of blog articles per se, I'd recommend creating high value resource articles on topics people who'd benefit from your app may search for. For example, if you offer a goal progress app, people with interest may search for resources on 'long-term strategies to boost productivity that you won't give up after a few days'.

High value = it should provide a comprehensive breakdown of the topic _and_ cover points the top ranking articles on the same topic don't. This will boost your article's search rankings and help it attract more backlinks and social shares.

You can also offer a PDF download of the resource in exchange for an email address so you can nurture these leads.

Examples of these resource articles:

[1] [https://mailshake.com/masterclass/find-email- addresses/](https://mailshake.com/masterclass/find-email-addresses/)

[2] [https://artofemails.com/sales-follow-up](https://artofemails.com/sales- follow-up)

</comment><comment><USER13> Disclaimer: I do content marketing consulting and used to own an agency that did same.

Don't think of it as a blog. See it as your own media platform. Whose only purpose is to broadcast information that drives sales.

It is also an always-ready salesperson who never sleeps and can be trained to overcome any objection to close sales.

A properly managed blog is definitely worth your time. However, the content must be clearly integrated with your marketing and advertising.

The best type of content? Anything that helps current users better use your product. Tutorials, guides, docs, videos, etc. The second best is content that shows how your product solves a specific problem.

You don't need to limit yourself to one blog either. A multi-outlet approach works really well and typically helps corner a market.

</comment><comment><USER14> Yes, both! Just make sure you don't enjoy writing it, or you might actually achieve something worthwhile.

</comment><comment><USER15> >Is having a blog alongside my website clever marketing or just a waste of my time?

I used to blog all the time, but that was back when blogs were just a way for people to communicate things they were interested in, not primarily a means of marketing. Just do it - if you enjoy it, keep doing it, if you don't, stop.

Chances are if it's just for marketing purposes, and unless you care enough and are at least a decent enough writer to be engaging, then it's not going to get a lot of readers anyway, because you won't be writing anything worth reading.

So to me, the question you should be asking yourself isn't whether it would be a clever way to market the app, but whether or not you _want to blog._

</comment><comment><USER16> One of the things i use to evaluate a company's legitimacy and ability to succeed is their ability to be a thought leader through content marketing and influencing. Not just blogging...but a mix of blogging, youtube videos/tutorials, meetups etc...and above all else actually be an influencer with that content. meaning lots of people subscribe and share that stuff.

That being said, blogging is just a medium to show the world what you know and how good you are at teaching others as well. If you don't know anything and don't have anything valuable to share, then your blog will probably be a 'waste of time'.

</comment><comment><USER17> It probably depends on your product.

The more expensive your service is, the more you'll probably need to offer proof that it's worth the price. If your service is going to cost me a one time purchase price of $1, I'm going to buy it regardless of what you say. If it's going to cost me $499/month, I'm going to research the heck out of it, which would probably include reading your blog and/or the best parts of your site to find the information I need.

The harder your product is to use, because somethings are just complicated no how simple you try to make them, you'll need an efficient way to educate your customers. One use for a blog is to have a place where you can tell stories about people using your product. "How Susie solved use getp0d.com to double her income" or "Using getp0d.com as a CRM for your motel's reservations". You can use a blog as a place to put any ol' random thought you have until there's a better place to put said thought. My company's old blog was mostly for making it sound like my services my be worth what the price I quoted you.

</comment><comment><USER18> Blog is always the best way to get leads whether you are a business owner or a developer/other professional, provided you love writing.

I use my blog to promote my skills and for last couple of years my site and blog helped me to earn some good contracts/gigs. Even my current job is due to my blog which someone read and contacted me.

<Shameless_Plug>

I am not an SEO expert but these tools did help me in early days. I wrote how I used them:

[http://blog.adnansiddiqi.me/3-free-seo-tools-you-should- use-...](http://blog.adnansiddiqi.me/3-free-seo-tools-you-should-use-for-your- next-blog-post/)

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</comment><comment><USER19> Here's a blog post for my startup:

[https://blog.projectpiglet.com/2018/03/refer-friend-using- st...](https://blog.projectpiglet.com/2018/03/refer-friend-using-stripe- rails-15-lines-code/)

I provide value to someone else, while also advertising my product. This gave me net 1 user last month. At lets say $10 / month, that's $120 / year. If I can get 12 people a year (1 per month) to register. Year one I'll have made $780 ($120 + $110 + $100 + ....).

I personally try to do at least one post a week, and some have a lot of success, some none. The value comes from then marketing that post and ever improving what people from your niche want to read. You can only convert people who read the post.

My example would be a failure (in my case), but it builds financially. As you advertise and get people coming to your stuff, more people typically come. They then tell their friends, share my posts, etc. You only need two or three big posts a year to get you tens to hundreds of users At once.

</comment><comment><USER20> It depends on your customers. If your potential customers are likely to be interested in reading things around the problem you are solving then maybe. But as others have mentioned, it needs to be "content first". If the content isn't good and just a thin excuse to talk about your product, it won't work.

I've been doing basic content marketing for my service ([https://medium.com/revenuecat-blog](https://medium.com/revenuecat-blog)) and it is my #1 source of new signups.

I have a lot of expertise in the subject. It is a wide domain with lots of adjacent problems I can write about. And, it is something that people search for and read about. All these together has made it worthwhile.

That said, it is very time consuming. I try to average one post a week but a good post that is worth publishing takes me probably 5-10 hours of work between research, drafting, proofing, and promoting. This is time taken away from product development, so you need to consider the ROI.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. You raise a good point. My solution is not sexy and I'm not sure people would want to read around it. I'll add that to my list of pros and cons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think it depends on how you use it. I look at app blogs for very specific things: roadmap posts, changelogs, bug reports filed and fixed, etc. I like knowing that the devs of various apps I use are not only active, but willing to make changes public. If you already have a user forum, you probably don't need a blog; assuming you have one specific pinned news thread that you keep up to date. If you don't you're misusing your forum.

If you can include a series of user guides for various topics related to your app, or prove (preferably with visual examples) how your app provides a solution to some issue or whatnot, then your blog will have value. If you already have a wiki or a forum, you probably don't need a blog.

If you think you have something worth sharing that's important to others outside the specific niche your app fills but tangential to it, go for it; but you'd probably be better off on Facebook or Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER22> Not really a waste of time if you have any news to share about your product. Not everything you post needs to be a great article, it can be an interesting feature you added or some details about a nontrivial change. If you have the blog and the news on the same channel (e.g. on the same RSS feed, etc), it'll presumably be likelier that the nice, detailed, intriguing actual blog posts will be seen by much more people, and you won't need to write too many of them to get people to read/backlink your blog posts.

My main mode for following anything online is to add a news RSS feed or a commits RSS feed if applicable to my feedreader. IDK how many people do it like me though, I guess, depending on the product, often the bulk of the customers will be using the prominent social media instead. Nevertheless having it there for the important news and the occasional blog post should not be that big of a waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER23> Remember that PR/marketing is about _spending time_ with the public in order to be seen. Blogging is one of many ways to get attention. But maybe your time is better spent on something else then blogging ? Think of something that might be news-worthy. It doesn't even need to have anything to do with your product.

</comment><comment><USER24> I use mine (which also goes out as an email) to consolidate the things I'm working on in my mind.

The benefit to me is I write reflectively on what I've learnt, the benefit to my audience is that it positions me as an expert (you only need to be one day ahead of someone to be an expert).

I do post daily though.

I also really enjoy writing, without that it would be a chore.

</comment><comment><USER25> When I'm working with tech companies, the most frustrating concept is whether to blog. On one hand, the blogging zealots think blogging is this panacea and want to spend all of their time blogging about fun but ultimately irrelevant topics that generate traffic (e.g., "Why I Hate Ruby!" when they're selling software to banking execs). Or on the other hand, the curmudgeons are cynical about blogging because they "tried it once and it didn't work." The best advice I've received is every startup should try blogging at least once, but measure the results. Not just visits to your site or sign-ups from tire- kickers on P.H. who want to test your onboarding strategies. Did the blog post yield paying customers? If not, try another marketing strategy, but measure it too.

</comment><comment><USER26> The fact that you're asking shows me that it is a waste of your time for you. You can't fake/brute force your way to a great blog. Unless you're really into writing it, it's not going to be enjoyable to write or read.

You can get some value out of it, but odds are you'll be frustrated and hate doing it.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's maybe a little too black and white but I hear what you are saying Paul. If I just see it as means to an end I may be missing the point. Point taken.

<comment><USER27> I personally love writing but don't have the time for a real blog. If you want to add content but not be strapped into regular updates, well written articles added to your site never need to be labeled as such.

For example I decided to write once every 6 weeks to my mailing list this year (I hate more than that, so I'm not sending what I wouldn't accept to receive). Once I have a few built up, I will then add them to my site and not hesitate to rewrite the content if I have feedback to integrate.

I think you need an internal metric for regularity or your content writing will just slip away from you and won't happen.

<comment><USER28> This is a good perspective. We have been conditioned to think of content marketing as only one thing, regularity. But since most posters agree that one great article can pull all the business, it might be worth asking whether we should be going for one big article versus the steady stream approach.

I think I would prefer the one big article, every month or so, to the pressure to put out "something" every week...

<comment><USER27> I think most people on HN are paid for their expertise. You don't garner much respect by pushing fluff. So most of us should err (heavily imo) on the side of too few rather than too many articles. I am also B2B, and no professional wants a cluttered inbox.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Blogging also allows you to commit information / concepts / marketing about your product into written form. I've found this extends my understanding, gives me more ideas, is a source of feedback and this written information can be reused for other things at a later date.

</comment><comment><USER30> _Is having a blog alongside my website clever marketing or just a waste of my time?_

The only real way to know is to try it and see if it works.

I will note that you can pay for writing. You typically give someone a topic to write about and maybe a link to include or some key words. There are people who do this as freelancers and there are services that do this.

It doesn't completely get you off the hook, but it can reduce the workload involved. If it makes more money than it costs you, it can be well worth it.

Edit: You also might be interested in reading this:

[http://www.doreenmicheletraylor.com/2018/02/actionable- conte...](http://www.doreenmicheletraylor.com/2018/02/actionable-content- marketing-tips.html)

</comment><comment><USER31> Another strategy (I can't find the post, but HN regular mbuckbee evangelizes this) is to create small free tools / indexes to get inbound traffic. They might be small byproducts you made while creating your business.

Examples: AWS in plain english, foragoodstrftime.com, everytimezone.com, the various 'awesome' lists, etc. I've personally thought about writing batch scripts for dumb little tasks. Books that lead into your business are also common.

Make it something your audience will value. Then the general idea then is you can share it to your mailing list (i.e. in amy hoy parlance an 'ebomb').

</comment><comment><USER32> If you want to acquire users from google search its absolutely required that you have fresh and frequently updated content with links from other reputable sources to even be considered to be displayed on a search result.

If you don't care about acquiring users from search as you have other means then yes a blog may be a complete waste of time.

If your site already has some crawl-able content and your already receiving some traffic from google, rather than create a blog your time is probably better spent doing the following:

creating more content pages to help google understand your site

creating a sitemap

decreasing the load time of your site

spend money on google ads

get high quality back links

<comment><USER33> If you want to acquire users from Google search you can always just run paid ads too. Much easier than writing evergreen content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Sure, if you have a successful blog there's no better way to get traffic than free traffic! But, look at how many people are successful with it. What like less than 1%? I don't know what the figures are but I know it's really really low. The vast majority will fail to attract any meaningful amount of traffic. Someone correct me if i'm wrong, I wish i was.

</comment><comment><USER35> Hey! An engineering blog is one of the things that could push me over the edge in a decision between two otherwise equal projects or products. Not to mention how helpful your posts could be to others, just describing your technology problems and how you have overcome them. If you have the time for it, there's nothing but good that could come out of it.

</comment><comment><USER36> Really depends on the topic and if you're able to write something that will be interesting for readers... or not

</comment><comment><USER37> It depends upon how you write your blog. If you're focusing on helping your users, you're probably doing it wrong. Here's a detailed guide on how the pro bloggers do it: [https://taprun.com/content/](https://taprun.com/content/)

</comment><comment><USER38> It's worth it for developer marketing. People are constantly googling for anything that solves their problem, so if you can post useful solutions that tie into your product, preferably with some soft of freemium hook, its great.

I have no idea how often people google specific keywords in other verticals, so ymmv.

</comment><comment><USER39> Let's say you double your revenue via your blog. Do you feel like the time you'd spend writing content is worth more or less than $14k? (Obviously you can hope you'd more than 2x your revenue, but unless you already have a massive following, I think you have to be conservative)

</comment><comment><USER40> I have done a decent amount of marketing for several companies, I've been a data scientist and now I'm a software engineer. I am currently trying to get traffic to my side project [http://www.careerminer.co](http://www.careerminer.co) I have tried:

email marketing, social media posting, reddit posts / sub reddit comments

My last job I worked at a lending company and we would spend like $10,000 on a direct mail campaign and it would result in like 50 website sessions. We kinda shot down blogging and content SEO stuff as to vague with unpredictable results and the few blog posts we did had like 10 sessions. We focused on email marketing, cold calling, paid ads and direct mail. We would spend like $50 per session on paid ads.

But heres the kicker.

Before the company stopped operations we decided to give content SEO one last shot, we went after long tail keyword content pages, stuff like "what is a good apr" we saw our competitors doing this. All our previous blog posts were like "mini profile : meet joe blogs founder of joes coffee" which never really generated much traffic, it was way to specific and people just don't google that.

Its been a year and I still have access to GA. I looked at it and those long tail keywords pages that we went after are absolutely crushing it like one is generating 1000 new users every month (which I know is still not huge but for a small lending company (boring) its huge) and here is the double kicker, we got a text broker [https://www.textbroker.com/](https://www.textbroker.com/) to write each post for like $50. So 1000 a month recurring for $50 or like 1 session for $50. Its just crazy.

I listened to [https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/038-dawson-whitfield- of...](https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/038-dawson-whitfield-of-logojoy).

>So our first like five months, our growth was 100% fueled, apart from Indie Hackers, by AdWords. We would spend $1.00 to acquire a customer and about four days later, we would get a $1.10

>Now-a-days about 55% of our new users come from organic SEO, we've really pushed hard on that

I feel like this has been my experience with so many companies and friends. But agree with the general sentiment that if you don't have a really clear strategy, keywords, topics etc it will be a "waste of time".

</comment><comment><USER41> To be honest, lately it seems platform hosted blogs are better option (such as medium and wp.com) rather than host-your-own. Mostly because there is already some traffic on those platforms

<comment><USER42> That wouldn't provide any SEO benefits for his website, which I imagine is one of the primary goals.

Medium is good if you care only about having your articles read.

Your own website is good if you want to boost your website's Google rank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> It is great if you keep it up-to-date but can be a liability if you let it languish - many times when I see new releases on something but their blog is from 2014 it sorta looks bad.

</comment><comment><USER44> It, of course, depends on how well you use it. If you develop a good marketing plan, which you should have, and execute it well, it will be time and effort well-spent.

</comment><comment><USER45> The book Traction : A Startup Guide to Getting Customers was pretty good at explaining an all encompassing framework for asking and answering this kind of question.

</comment><comment><USER46> AFAIK, John Sonmez ( simpleprogrammer.com ) made his career jump to the multi- million-dollar status starting with his blog. So, i would look into it seriously.

</comment><comment><USER47> not trying to be "that guy" but the answer to your questions is "it depends"... distribution strategies vary by market. but Normally with Niche and Technology products. (Won't leave you hanging without an example: Basecamp's main source of marketing is their blog and social media, but as a comparison Cintas (CTAS/NASDAQ) does very little blogging)

</comment><comment><USER48> Do you enjoy writing? Are you decent at it? If you answer no to either of those questions, you might be in for a struggle.

<comment><AUTHOR> I enjoy it and write ok. I reckon I'm pretty slow though. I have this bad habit of re-reading what I have written too often.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Both; After certain stage people expect your product to stick/comply to your words in your blog;

</comment><comment><USER50> for a mobile app: absolutely not worth while

for a product like a "food supplement": yes, totally

the model is: right something useful which will get very relevant traffic via google, and be able to convert this traffic immediately to money

<comment><USER51> ...but first, learn how to right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Done right, a blog is a very cheap and powerful marketing tool.

As @superasn has mentioned, 1 huge win (again if done right) is you can keep getting recurring signups / new users if 1 or more of your blog posts ranks on top for keywords relating to your web app / product offering.

I've successfully grown a blog to over 100K monthly visitors in less than 6 months, all using organic SEO techniques. Too bad I didn't (still don't) have a product to market on that blog. It ranks on 1st page for several tech related keywords, incl. a couple related to apple and steve jobs.

What's your web app / domain? Without knowing much about it, I can't give you domain / topic specific advise. My email is in bio if you wanna chat more.

</comment><comment><USER53> Is it really that hard to blog every week or two about something interesting and related?

</comment><comment><USER54> It depends</comment>


Innovative Campstove Generates Electricity - <AUTHOR> http://www.gizmag.com/biolite-low-emission-eco-camping-stove/14952/

<comment><USER2> Utility for camping: I know I would never use it.

Utility for home use in low/zero-infrastructure countries, refugee camps, etc: Humongous. Wood gasification is very, very efficient and low-emissions compared to an open fire (which is still the only way to cook in many places around the world).

</comment><comment><USER3> _Since the BioLite will burn almost any biomass fuel; from wood, pine cones, leaves, pellets, rice husks, even dung, it means fuel need not be carried_

Personally I'd rather not cook my food on burning dung.

Still, kids these days with their fancy stoves. In _my_ day we'd build a fire out of sticks and cook our dinner in a billy can, and we didn't get excited that we "didn't need to carry fuel". Probably weighed a fifth of a pound, too.

Seriously though, it seems like a good design if you're going somewhere that firewood isn't abundant or building open fires isn't allowed. The fan sucks in air for efficient combustion and the thermoelectrics generate energy to power the fan using waste heat. Neato!

<comment><USER4> There are quite a few places (i.e. Grand Canyon) where fires are not allowed. Too heavy for lightweight backpacking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Battery-operated stoves have been available for years: smaller than this stove; the batteries are definitely lighter than that 'power generator'.

This stove is neither small nor light, and doesn't solve the fuel problem any better than existing stoves. At least for short-term (week or less) camping. Batteries for a fan will last for hours.

In addition the demo video cut away when lighting the dang thing- I wanted to know how fast it came up to speed! I guess I'll never know.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More info and video:

<http://www.biolitestove.com/CampStove.html></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone here climbed up from rock bottom? How did you do it? - <AUTHOR> Nearly all my team was laid off on Friday. I was talking to one of them, it isn't pretty. These are good people, good at their jobs and yet, were tossed aside without a thought (the company itself is doing well by the way).<p>Which brings me to : how does one climb up from bad situations? Not just career wise, but life in general. Especially if one is in their 40s and 50s with responsibilities (kids, mortgage etc). <comment><USER2> It all depends on your definition of 'rock bottom'.

I lost my wife house and family all at once when I was 42. "How do I start again when my life is nearly over?" I spent several weeks just staring at the wall. A friend asked me what I did before I was married. 'Travelling' I said. "Well, do that again." she said.

So I did. Being self-dependent for six weeks got me out of my depression. Within a month or two, friends came out of the wood-work. Within six months, I had to choose which of two women I would stay with.

I chose well, 32 years later we're still together.

"You have to like yourself first, before others can like you."

<comment><USER3> This is so important! "You have to like yourself first, before others can like you."!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Went through both the emotional an financial rock bottom in recent years at least twice. The key is to realize that you, yes, you, were created (yes, you have a creator!) to perform certain works that only you can do. Work on faith (I can honestly say that without Christian faith, and reading St. Augustine's writings on suicide, I would have killed myself years ago). That's the first thing.

Secondly, make positive progress every day. Make _some_ money, even if it's not enough yet. Cut expenses to the bone, and then cut more. (We managed to keep our house, but in retrospect, should have sold it and downsized.) The good news is that both my wife and I have good jobs now, and we're socking away enough money to dig out of the hole. It's not fun, but we're heading up. Hang in there, and make sure you do something to move the ball forward every single day. And seriously, find a prayer and/or bible study group to help you through - these are tough times, and we're stronger together, but realize that none of us has any strength next to the one who created you and everything else. (Not to get preachy, but Chrisitianity really is the most uplifting and freeing thing ever - all your screwups have been paid for, and if you just believe that, you are adopted into the family of the God of the Universe. That's pretty amazing good news, and the ultimate empowerment!)

</comment><comment><USER5> If it's financial rock bottom as in that you need to make ends meet, to sustain yourself and your family, it's mostly the environment that dictates what can be done. If the situation seems absolute, as in that no suitable jobs are available, securing land and growing food yourself etc. can go a long way.

Emotional rock bottom: probably goes in hand with the former. Anyway, don't blame yourself. I dunno who made the call and on what grounds they made it. That kind of stuff eats you, especially if you don't know.

In any case I urge you to keep going and wish you all the best. Much to wonder, and live for.

</comment><comment><USER6> After a series of bad decisions I quit some well-paying big company jobs to chase a startup dream. 4 years later I was living in a trailer and my health and relationships were deteriorating.

Deus Ex Machina, crypto started its rampage of a bull run. In desperation I started sifting through old hard drives. I found about 20 and was able to sell near the top (~$400k).

I don't have anything useful, just an observation that it's a bit scary how strong momentum can be, whether positive or negative.

</comment><comment><USER7> If they're in 40s and 50s and they are in tech, they should have savings which would make the transition to a new job painless.</comment>


Cannon.js + Three.js first person shooter test - <AUTHOR> http://granular.cs.umu.se/cannon.js/examples/threejs_fps.html <comment><USER2> Wow, this is a very nice demo. I was quite surprised at how simple the demo script is - no offence :), that shows some maturity for cannon.js and three.js that I wasn't aware of.

Great job BTW!

</comment><comment><USER3> Working on my chromium in 12.10. Also, I really like how I can jump off of the balls I'm shooting meaning I can basically fly.

</comment><comment><USER4> > Your browser doesn't seem to support Pointer Lock API

Not supported on Chrome (up to date as far as I know) on Ubuntu.</comment>


Ask PG: non-competes for applicants? - <AUTHOR>

Does it torpedo our YC application if two of the founders work together at a company now? And do we have to leave at the exact same time to avoid triggering a non-compete?<p>Our contracts have what I assume is a typical clause against poaching of existing employees for a certain amount of time after leaving, but I've also got a job offer for a much higher salary that would help save up for YC if we get in. <comment><USER2> You should read the contract you signed thoroughly instead of assuming anything. You could also be upfront with your employer, bring the contract in, and have it modified before making any decisions.

<comment><USER3> Read the contract and _talk to a lawyer_. Sometimes there are things included that the law won't support. Sometimes there are terms that look innocuous which, when taken in context of state law, aren't.

Yeah, it is a mess. That's why they have lawyers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, that's a great idea to talk to a lawyer. Seems really obvious in hindsight but it's not something I'm accustomed to or have ever had to do before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The non-compete is legal in many, but not all states (depending on its scope). It is legal in California, but cannot extend more than a couple of years beyond employment.

The bigger concern is the intellectual property clause of your contract; if your startup would be competing directly with your current company's products (in the market or in development), they would have a very strong claim to it.

Also, the poaching clause is legal in most states. It doesn't mean you can't recruit existing employees, it simply means you can't do so in a way that interferes with the target employee's contract with his current employer (i.e., by badmouthing the employer/its practices, etc).</comment>


Autonomous Cars Break Uber - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/18/autonomous-cars-break-uber/ <comment><USER2> Why wouldn't Uber just switch from being a marketplace bringing together riders and drivers, to a marketplace bringing together riders and autonomous cars (and their owners)?

I suppose a well-financed rival could buy huge fleets of vehicles and compete directly with Uber, but Uber doesn't have to make that capital commitment. They just continue to be the middle-man between the riders and the cars, except the cars are no longer managed by their drivers, but by their owners (whoever they might be, individuals or large corporations).

Uber's big advantage is that they've already created the market. This is Paul Graham's idea about not automating in the early days of a startup taken to the extreme.

<comment><USER3> When I want to go somewhere, why wouldn't I use google maps to hail a ride instead of Uber?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well, it _would_ break Uber if it weren't really clear that Uber is aware of this and wants to get in on it as soon as they can. Digital cameras broke Polaroid, but if Polaroid had gotten in on it early they could have been a dominant force in an emerging market. I don't think Uber is Polaroid here.

<comment><USER5> Right. To riff on Clay Christensen, Uber is well-aware that self-driving cars will disrupt them, and want to be the ones to bring that disruption to market such that they have the opportunity to survive it and profit from it as opposed to being Polaroided, or Kodaked.

<comment><USER6> but I find the timing of investing in self driving cars will be the end of Uber, it's a pivot, one that will ultimately benefit Google and Tesla type of established, tech giants with tons of data and hardware experience vs. a mobile app backed by a business that owns neither it's people or drivers.

The article talks about network effect but it is grossly miscalculated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The key change for Uber when we have completely autonomous cars is that we will go from a two-sided marketplace matching drivers to riders to a much simpler retail model: riders buying rides. Whatever mindshare and network effects Uber has in the marketplace model will fall in importance, and the new king in the space will be the company that can deliver rides cheapest and fastest.

Uber is way behind Google and even Apple when it comes to calculating the best routes from place to place...

<comment><USER8> >Uber is way behind Google and even Apple when it comes to calculating the best routes from place to place..

If that's really the issue they can pay Google or Apple. But I really doubt it's that much far behind considering they just bought bing maps tech

<comment><USER9> I mean if they are just going to pay someone for the mapping and they are going to buy their cars from tesla, what do they bring to the table? just an app?

<comment><USER8> Market penetration in 60 countries?

<comment><USER9> its an app, it takes 2 minutes to download a different one which most people would do, especially if it was google or tesla or even honda

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is completely wrong. Self-driving cars don't break Uber - self-driving cars will help Uber reach its full potential. The assertion that Uber is a service that matches riders with drivers is completely wrong. What Uber does is match passengers with potential rides. As far as Uber is concerned, today it is an unfortunate reality of technology that the only way that ride is fulfilled is with a driver.

Drivers represent a huge cost in Uber's operation, and just a cursory glance at Uber news reveals that drivers have also been the greatest threat to their legal legitimacy. Uber is as highly valued as it is because it is one transportation business whose model is completely safe in the autonomous vehicle world. Uber will operate in exactly the same way it does today -- we just won't have anyone up front.

</comment><comment><USER11> Ultimately the operating profit of a vehicle has to create a return on the capital outlay. Uber's current network effect guarantees a high utilization as autonomous vehicles are introduced.

higher utilization -> higher hourly operating profit -> margin to decrease prices -> unprofitable for new entrants -> barrier to entry

Without an existing network, the (the considerable! $Bs) capital need to buy a fleet of autonomous vehicles is prohibitive for even a determined new entrant.

(and so, as expected, the writer is wrong)

<comment><USER11> Interesting corollary: a (future autonomous car) company planning on competing with Uber in the future would be best positioned if they buy Lyft now and operate it at a loss to grow their network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "[Uber CEO Travis Kalanick] recently told me that in 2020, if Telsas are autonomous, he'd want to buy all of them. He said all 500,000 of estimated 2020 production, I'd want them all, but he couldn't get a return call from Elon." — Steve Jurvetson

Kyle Samani completely ignores the diagram he spent so much time talking about. He's convincing himself that being able to park his $200k autonomous car a few miles away in free parking—summoning it to pick him up when he needs it—means he won't need to use a ride hailing service.

I wonder if he will still feel that way when he's been standing at the curb for half an hour waiting for his personal car to arrive, while the rest of the (non-car-owning) dinner party have hailed autonomous vehicles and departed within three minutes of leaving the restaurant?

Given the choice between buying a $200k car, or paying a few dollars every time I want to travel somewhere, I think I'd prefer the paid rides. The $200k could be invested in something productive in the meantime.

</comment><comment><USER13> Uber is a dispatch and marketing system. The vehicle and driver are fungible parts of their machine.

Autonomous vehicles can enhance Uber's ability to offer travel with lower pricing than traditional vehicles and dispatch. Especially once they have goodwill built up.

</comment><comment><USER14> Nothing will change instead of drivers buying a car and joining uber. People will buy autonomous cars and register with Uber.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm surprised there's no mention of Uber's Advanced Technologies Center. IIRC this is exactly why they made it.

<comment><USER16> Also the 1B investment in Uber by Google is clearly where this is heading...</comment></comment>


Stanford Engineers Find Secret to Steady Drone Cameras in Swan Necks - <AUTHOR> http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/august/birds-head-suspension-082815.html

<comment><USER2> Clickbait

Current gimbals are silky smooth and dont require 200 suspended motors

<comment><USER3> Its not clickbait. It looks like interesting research on swans, but applicability to drones seems to be "flapping drones" that are hardly common; drones are generally quite smooth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nothing new.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steadicam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steadicam)

Of course, now they'll file for a patent and old technology will become gated.</comment>


The Improbable Rise of Minecraft - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_16/b4224032575898.htm

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately, this article doesn't seem to offer any insights into what factors made the game so successful, or even really present much new information that couldn't be found in one of the many other links on HN over the last several months.

See, e.g.: [1]<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1740289> [2]<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2107773> [3]<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1718023>

</comment><comment><USER3> As the other commentors mentioned, there's nothing improbable about it -- but there shouldn't even be anything too _surprising_ about it. It's not even as if Minecraft is the first time this happened _or_ the most extreme case of it happening. It's probably the most widely-publicized example though, at least among the tech media.

Of course, this doesn't at all reduce the value of Minecraft's success -- it's just that Minecraft is not some singular magical exception in a world of failures. This has happened before, and it'll happen again, and it'll happen bigger.

</comment><comment><USER4> I feel like I rage on titles all too often, but I can't resist this one, particularly since this one comes from businessweek which is currently putting a grotesque pop-up to win 1000$ for a survey in my face.

There's nothing _improbable_ about the rise of minecraft. It hit the right notes, took the right steps. What it was, was _unexpected,_ particularly to an audience/demographic (excuse the coming absurdly broad brush I swear it's just for hyperbolic humor) that relies on men in suits making decisions about what sells and what doesn't.

Hopefully I got over my pedantic streak for the day via that one word.

<comment><USER5> To me the title smells of the case of "10 years to an overnight success" since Notch has been building random games for years, this was just the one that happened to take off.</comment></comment>


Why Delta Air Lines Paid Me $11,000 Not to Fly to Florida This Weekend - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2017/04/09/why-delta-air-lines-paid-me-11000-not-to-fly-to-florida-this-weekend/#5e4480e24de1 <comment><USER2> > _I felt a bit guilty making so much money off the situation_

Not really sure why people feel guilty when a corporation negotiates a mutually beneficial agreement with them.</comment>


4 Tips for Digital Project Managers - michael-hixson http://www.l-s.com/blog/four-tips-for-digital-project-managers <comment> michael-hixson In this post, I share insights from the DPM Summit 2015. Including: Improving design feedback. Managing a project from the "Last Responsible Moment." Being the UX champ. And how to be an "intrapreneur."</comment>


France looking at banning Tor, blocking public Wi-Fi - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/12/france-looking-at-banning-tor-blocking-public-wi-fi/ <comment><USER2> The French regime again showing its ugly authoritarian and statist face with these draconian bills. It wasn't enough for them to put environmentalists under house arrest and subject innocent people to humiliating mandatory reporting to different police stations 3 times a day or obligatory curfew for certain people or neighborhoods without any judicial oversight. [0]

I knew it from the beginning that they would abuse the State of Emergency decree and turn the lives of people esp minorities into a living hell.

[0]: [https://wiki.laquadrature.net/%C3%89tat_urgence/Recensement#](https://wiki.laquadrature.net/%C3%89tat_urgence/Recensement#) ((FR))

<comment><USER3> The police found more than 300 illegal weapons during their searches. People that were put under house arrests have a file on them because of their links with terrorists or terrorist organizations. I don't feel the government is abusing the state of emergency, I just feel they should have done all this before the attacks.

<comment><USER2> Hey people, I have a file on GrumpyBen, can someone please lock him up as he is deemed a threat to public safety?

Joking aside, if activists committed any crime, you follow the legal procedures and challenge them in a court of law before a judge and let the defendants present their case in a free trial and see if any of the charges you brought against them sticks, otherwise shut up and leave them alone because if you start allowing police to hand out sentences without legal recourse to challenge these arbitrary punishments, you'll descend slowly into a police state and horrific society to live within.

<comment><USER4> I don't find your "joke" very funny at all, in the aftermath of almost 200 terrorist deaths (in the west) in November alone. GrumpyBen's prescription is not fun and anti-liberty, but so is living in a society being preyed upon by violent groups within it.

<comment><USER2> I don't find your comment constructive at all.

First, it wasn't a joke. Second, we were discussing putting environment activists under arbitrary house arrest not terrorists or terrorism. Your anger at the tragic death should be directed at the terrorists or the security apparatus which failed miserably to protect people in the "west" and not at me or the activists.

Try next time to read the comments first before jumping into the discussion.

<comment><USER4> your silly faux-incitement "joking" ( _your words_ ) strikes the wrong tone in this literally deadly-serious subject matter, and if it potentially offends sensibilities then I'm sorry, but pointing that out to you can be constructive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> France doesn't consider anything. If you speak French, just read the original article on lemonde. It's just a wish list from people working in police and gendarmerie.

        Etabli mardi 1er décembre par la direction des libertés publiques
        et des affaires juridiques (DLPAJ), il recense toutes les mesures
        de police administrative que les policiers et les gendarmes
        souhaiteraient voir passer dans le cadre des deux projets de loi
        en cours d'élaboration, l'un sur l'état d'urgence et l'autre sur
        la lutte antiterroriste.

Even if it was an official proposition from government, there were no guarantee this will go through the legislative process. Parliamentary members do not follow systematically the government and even when they do, many laws are partially or completely blocked by "conseil constitutionnel".

<comment><USER6> Does the French public complain that "nothing gets passed" like the Australian public does? I am a massive fan of that system. It has stopped dangerous legislation from being passed. Not all of it, and not enough, but some, and that's better than none.

<comment><USER7> A lot of people don't understand this about the American system. It's not _supposed_ to be easy to push through new law. It's supposed to be so difficult that only law that reflects wide consensus can get through, under the theory that this will prevent bad or dangerous laws from going on the books. If there's a problem in the system now, it's that people have stopped trying to reach that consensus, not that the process is slow when it's being actively pursued.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think we should really investigate the writers of these two new pieces of legislation. These people are a bigger threat for all our values than all the terrorists of the world. The only good answer to terrorism is to not surrender freedom.

<comment><USER9> The cynical view is that these people are simply using the attacks as a way to push through legislation that they wanted to push through regardless. Politicians like these are just opportunists and would use any hot button issue to get their way because they know that's the easiest way to railroad through their pet laws. It's easy to get people to vote against their own interest, all you need is fear.

There are many such tricks, another is to bring the important stuff up for vote in the last little bit before a session closes and to waste as much of the session prior to that by debating some inane point of some un-important issue at great length leaving insufficient time to debate the important stuff.

It's all tricks and psychology, reason has little to do with it.

<comment><USER10> The slightly less cynical view is that they know that the next time something happens they know that - if encryption _is_ involved, they will be absolutely pilloried by the popular press, opposition etc. for "not doing everything that can be done".

It takes a certain determination to stand up to that kind of threat.

<comment><USER9> Whether encryption is or is not involved is immaterial, we already know that you can pull off attacks like these _without_ it, so you may assume that it is also possible pulling off attacks like these with it. That law does nothing at all to prevent future attacks and the popular press being clueless isn't news either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> We see the same impulse in the U.S. and across the world: whenever something bad happens, people call out for something to be done, regardless of whether that something would have helped, or if its negative effects outweigh its positive effects.

We see it with encryption. Yes, encryption can be and is used by bad people for evil ends, but it is also used by good people for good ends; encryption is simply the means. It's a human right to speak privately. Law enforcement can still investigate, can still use different powers to eavesdrop and compel parties to speech to reveal that speech; but it has no right to be party to private speech. Yes, bad things will not be detected as a result, but it's worth it.

We see it with arms control. Yes, weapons can be and are used by bad people to kill innocents; but they are also used by good people to defend themselves, whether from crime or tyranny. It is a human right to be armed. Law enforcement and the military can still use their superior numbers and training to overwhelm a foe, but they have no right to claim a monopoly on arms. Yes, innocents will die, but innocents will also live.

We see it with the war on some drugs. Yes, some people will take certain drugs and commit crimes; but other people will take those same drugs and enjoy a pleasant mental state. Law enforcement can still arrest criminals, but it has no right to arrest folks who haven't harmed anyone. It's a human right to alter one's mental state. The tradeoff is worth it.

The thing is, you have to take this attitude toward all things: religion; drugs; weapons; encryption; speech in general. Once you start to carve out exceptions and exclusions to liberty, you'll end up losing ever-more liberty. It happens faster than one might imagine.

</comment><comment><USER12> All this because 130 people were killed. What would they do to prevent the 4600 people killed in road accidents in France last year? Or the 49000 people killed by alcohol [in 2009]?

<comment><USER13> And as far as I know, they did not use any encryption anyway, so I don't even see the point here, it's totally unrelated. Should we ban unencrypted connections then since that's what they used ?

<comment><USER14> Let's get to the root of it - they were humans. We should definitely ban those. Mankind is evil anyway - just think of how many victims it had! /s

<comment><USER13> Exactly, and they committed crimes using cars ! I mean, it can't just be a coincidence, in the previous Charlie Hebdo attacks, the guys also used a car to escape from there ! If we ban cars, then no more attacks, it cannot be any simpler than that !

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What is more ridiculous is that shared public wifi would become critical in the event of a major terror attack (on scale with 9/11). We have already seen the use of social media to allow families and friends to connect after a disaster occurs. Given the fragility of mobile data networks under heavy load, public wifi could become the only option for mass communications. The French government will only be handicapping its people when they need help most.

<comment><USER16> I think we need a mesh topology at the network layer in order to really have reliable networks in an emergency. TCP/IP, in my opinion, is an engine that centralizes power: Which leads to choke points and single points of failure for critical systems. This is especially true for most end nodes: I'm out of luck if Comcast goes down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> That's logical since the known attackers did not use public Wi-Fi nor Tor as far as we know today but all kinds of plain text channels. /s

<comment><USER17> You see, outlawing $RANDOMTHING is cheaper than properly staffing police units so they can follow all the leads they get.

<comment><USER18> And more popular with the public.

You tell the public you're banning something they don't really use? Fine. You tell the public you're doubling police forces in a time of strong anti-police sentiment? Good luck in the next election.

<comment><USER9> And it's cheaper too...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have 0 faith in governments both for understanding and acting properly in the information age. They have time and again acted bad, and seem to not even understand the medium with they try to regulate.

In the information age, power does not lie with the one who has the guns. I hope everyone reading this takes some time to research how to encrypt your communication & how to use bitcoin.

I also hope we will see more user-friendly ways to communicate securely (BitMessage is an awesome solution for this)

<comment><USER20> > I have 0 faith in governments both for understanding and acting properly in > the information age.

Can we go without a government that properly understand the information age? If so, how? Who would you trust instead, to organize public affairs?

If not, why does this kind of government doesn't (want to) understand it?

<comment><USER21> >For the past 3500 years of the Western world, the effects of media–whether it's speech, writing, printing, photography, radio or television–have been systematically overlooked by social observers. Even in today's revolutionary electronic age, scholars evidence few signs of modifying this traditional stance of ostrich-like disregard.

>Because all media, from the phonetic alphabet to the computer, are extensions of man that cause deep and lasting changes in him and transform his environment. Such an extension is an intensification, an amplification of an organ, sense or function, and whenever it takes place, the central nervous system appears to institute a self-protective numbing of the affected area, insulating and anesthetizing it from conscious awareness of what's happening to it. It's a process rather like that which occurs to the body under shock or stress conditions, or to the mind in line with the Freudian concept of repression. I call this peculiar form of self-hypnosis Narcissus narcosis, a syndrome whereby man remains as unaware of the psychic and social effects of his new technology as a fish of the water it swims in. As a result, precisely at the point where a new media-induced environment becomes all pervasive and transmogrifies our sensory balance, it also becomes invisible.

>This problem is doubly acute today because man must, as a simple survival strategy, become aware of what is happening to him, despite the attendant pain of such comprehension. The fact that he has not done so in this age of electronics is what has made this also the age of anxiety, which in turn has been transformed into its Doppelganger–the therapeutically reactive age of anomie and apathy. But despite our self protective escape mechanisms, the total-field awareness engendered by electronic media is enabling us–indeed, compelling us–to grope toward a consciousness of the unconscious, toward a realization that technology is an extension of our own bodies.

-Marshall McLuhan

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> 16-09-2015

Top Intel Lawyer Says Terror Attack Would Help Push for Anti-Encryption Legislation

[https://theintercept.com/2015/09/16/top-intel-lawyer- pushing...](https://theintercept.com/2015/09/16/top-intel-lawyer-pushing-anti- encryption-legislation-says-terror-attack-help/)

<comment><USER23> Related: An "Enormous Opportunity"

[https://theintercept.com/2015/09/11/today-14th- anniversary-e...](https://theintercept.com/2015/09/11/today-14th-anniversary- enormous-opportunity/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism#Origin_of_term](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism#Origin_of_term)

""Terrorism" comes from the French word terrorisme, and originally referred specifically to state terrorism as practiced by the French government during the 1793–1794 Reign of terror."

</comment><comment><USER25> And they were mocking the reactionary Patriot Act.

Learning from the past is hard. Or in this case, simply neglected for convenience. Cui bono?

<comment><USER26> Who's "they"? Do you have links to "they"? Do you have proof that the one "they" is the same group as the other "they"?

<comment><USER25> I'll get back to you when I'm done with my delicious freedom fries.

<comment><USER26> I can't quite tell if you're a troll or merely have a _really_ hard time understanding that France is actually in a very complex position here.

This entire thread is so depressingly misinformed about the country that I don't have the heart to correct people.

Namely people are quick to forget that France is in fact in a state of emergency and that conditions do change when that's pulled. It doesn't mean we should lie down and accept anything and everything, but forgetting what's actually going on makes everything _worse_.

There are serious issues with the current french government but they have nothing to do with "the left" or "the right", as if those things ever mattered. They have to do with how NIH and technologically impaired France is and that hasn't changed since the minitel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Yes, our government is going full r-tard. I fail to see the difference right now, between the "left" and the far right to which the left loves pointing fingers at. With the state of emergency, the left is behaving exactly like fascists.

Now imagine the left voting all these anti-freedom laws, suspending (some) human rights (as it is the case now), and in 2 years, the far right coming into power and using the laws the left voted for their own benefits.

<comment><USER25> I've been thinking this for some time lately, that while the notion of radical right is known and avoided in the modern world, the radical left is actually more harmful :

\- it's not that known to deal with it, since if you raise questions, you're labeled as right,

\- with this it powers the actual radical right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Yes, because the attackers didn't use plain old sms, oh no they didn't!

</comment><comment><USER29>
        > a ban on free and shared Wi-Fi connections during a
        > state of emergency

Restricting communication and access to news bulletins sounds like a terrible thing to do in a state of emergency!

</comment><comment><USER30> > The French prime minister suggested that they may soon make it illegal to > merely visit a terrorism-related website, too.

So getting rickrolled could land you in jail? Yeah, that'll go over really effectively.

</comment><comment> r-w The U.K. is already far beyond illiberal, but I can't see Germany going this way. They've long been on the right side of the Internet, and I doubt they'll have any need to do otherwise anytime soon.

<comment><USER31> German politicians and lobbyists are continuously pushing year after year. I fear the public losing interest in opposition.

<comment> r-w I'm more concerned that most people may never hear or even care about their dwindling online freedoms. I found an article over at [https://lobste.rs](https://lobste.rs) that drives this point home, if a bit melodramatically: [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/pirate-bay-founder-peter- su...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/pirate-bay-founder-peter-sunde-i-have- given-up)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Another country is looking at banning Tor. Another country will be defeated by Tor. Let's watch them fail.

</comment><comment><USER32> >block Wi-Fi hotspots during a state of emergency

but Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia!

</comment><comment><USER33> It is not the first time France has done things like this. In the 90s, France outlawed encryption completely, with prison sentence for breaking the ban. As tools like ssh became common, this became less and less practical. For example the supercomputer center at my university had to develop a one time password scheme for the French users (printed out and sent to them by mail), since ssh was strictly forbidden there.

<comment><USER34> I'd like to learn more, source/reference?

<comment><USER33> For the crypto ban, I was unable to find reputable references. I found only one from the Register, which I consider less than reputable (and the article in question is quite inaccurate, for example they managed to call Minister of Finance at the time, Dominique Strauss-Kahn Domenica, and refer to him as "she"). The factual content seems to be right otherwise, and 1999 is about the right timeframe.

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/01/15/france_to_end_severe...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/01/15/france_to_end_severe_encryption/)

As you can see, you could be sentenced to 6 months of jail and fined nearly $90000 for using encryption.

The one-time password telnet demon was developed at a university in Scandinavia before the ban ended in the second part of the 90s. This was a solution they weren't proud of, so naturally there wasn't written anything down about it, but it was considered better than pure telnet and it kept French users out of trouble (I hesitate to say the right side of the law, given its stupidity).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> My family and I had planned to move to France in the next few years, partly in order to educate our daughter in French. Given the state's behaviour, we will be reconsidering that move. Where are the _liberte_ , _egalite_ and _fraternite_ in these proposals? We can observe the exact opposite of all of these ideals: France has become a total hypocrisy.

</comment><comment><USER22> Windows 10 lets you share your WiFi password with your Facebook friends. That's technically a shared WiFi isn't it?

<comment><USER36> No, that's only sharing the password and that's done by the users, not necessarily by the owner. To share WiFi you have to own a hotspot, turn it on, give the password to somebody.

However I see your point: what if a company network (think a small shop) is shared with its employees and the password goes to their friends and they can connect from a car in the parking lot? _optout suffix for every network in France?

<comment><USER22> Or coffee shops were you get password printed on a bill after you order something, the same with hotels and motels, you get wifi password after registering for a room.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've read that the radical Muslim attacks were sponsored by Russia. In the absence of the Big Picture it's hard to understand Political Science and who are the main Actors on the spheres of influence.

All that Russia wanted was to divide their enemy. New propaganda but the trick is old.

#TerroristRussia

</comment><comment><USER38> West will not win against crazy groups by reimplementing the great firewall of China.

If the state wants to control our lifes, they should have real time access to credit card and phone data.

One main issue is religions and that it turns people against each other due to different beliefs.

<comment><USER39> no book of religion pushes people to grab a knife or a gun to harm others; crazy leaders do and unstable and uneducated people follow.

yet, even if we discard that previous point : forbidding religions would be exactly the same as creating one and pointing "believers" as enemies of "non believers" ... triggering more of what you try to stop

general education and broad tolerance between cultures (either religious or not) is quite probably the only way to move towards non violence and peace ...

<comment> loup-vaillant > _no book of religion pushes people to grab a knife or a gun to harm others_

Yes they do. From the old testament (Deuteronomy 13, 6-13) [http://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/13.htm](http://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/13.htm)

\---

 _If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, 'Let us go and serve other gods,' which neither you nor your fathers have known,_

 _some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other,_

 _you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him._

 _But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people._

\---

Of course, no sane priest or rabbi would ever endorse such words _today_. Nevertheless, they are written there for all to see and misapply.

Granted, I have taken the quote out of context. But so do religious fanatics.

<comment><USER40> _> Granted, I have taken the quote out of context. But so do religious fanatics._

You can't hand-wave this sort of thing away, since anyone can make the Bible say anything they want by selectively quoting it. You are doing more harm than good here.

The Old Testament law was set up to create a theocracy. Many infractions of the law were punishable by death. Contrast that to Jesus' teaching:

 _" You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:43-8)_

But of course, you'll need to understand the context in which Jesus is teaching to understand all of what he's saying in Matthew 5 and during his whole ministry.

In the very same chapter he addresses the law and says that he did not come to abolish it but to fulfill it. That statement has been a great point of contention through the ages as well.

Did I just make things worse by pulling a couple verses out of context? At least the ones I quoted don't advocate homicide.

As far as radical clerics/rabbis/priests/etc, religious leaders worth anything should encourage the congregation to look to the original texts rather than relying only on their words as final truth.

<comment><USER27> > But of course, you'll need to understand the context in which Jesus is > teaching to understand all of what he's saying in Matthew 5 and during his > whole ministry.

The problem right here : context. If the teachings of the Bible (or the Quran) are bound to a specific context then they shouldn't be worshiped like some universal and perfect teachings. Following these teachings then means following moral values that were only valid 2000 or 1300 years ago, in a specific context. Obviously one cannot live in a modern society while following the Bible or the Koran to the letter. While (most) Christians acknowledge that fact, irregardless of their beliefs in a creator, that's not the case of every religious group.

That's basically my problem with religion. It's a travesty, it exploits the need for spirituality every man has by trying to impose some random moral values dictated by a "superior being" nobody but a prophet has access to, without even trying to satisfy that need for spirituality at first place (since we know nothing about that being except the fact that he is "our creator"). And since men are not omniscient of course these moral values are bound to the context in which they were chosen. Religion is not faith in (a) god, but more like faith in the teachings of a man that says he has seen god.

<comment><USER41> I think your issue is quite deeper than that. Even if God revealed Himself to all humanity or more than one person, there would still be disbelievers. Humans were created that way, and God knows that obviously. We are inherently obtuse creatures when it comes to belief.

How many people should God reveal Himself to in order for others to believe in His existence? 2? 10? 10000? Would people still believe that revelation 100 years later? 1000 years later? How would the revelation take place? God just appears in the sky? Or personally to every human?

Keep in mind that exposure to a supernatural being is a difficult thing to handle for our tiny brains. Or perhaps it flies over our heads, like when you stand among a group of ants.

You might say why doesn't God just appear regularly? That would defeat the purpose of belief. It would be too easy then. Furthermore, I'd wager that we would not have developed as a species. Why try to understand the orbits of the planets when God will just appear in a few weeks? Is there a point anymore?

I guess my point is that the "why personal revelation" argument is a tough nut to crack. If you believe in God, then the answer is simply God knows more. If not, you might need to approach the issue in a more rational manner, instead of just scratch the surface and then dismiss religion entirely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> BTW, this is the real news from France today: [http://www.lefigaro.fr/elections/resultats/](http://www.lefigaro.fr/elections/resultats/)

</comment><comment><USER43> Could anyone cite the part of the article referring specifically to the TOR network (article behin pay wall).

(Note : I say "cite", which is not a copyright viloation)

<comment><USER44> Use this link: [https://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...](https://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj7rPOh5cnJAhVItxoKHQ- iC-sQqQIIIDAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Farstechnica.co.uk%2Ftech- policy%2F2015%2F12%2Ffrance-looking-at-banning-tor-blocking-public-wi- fi%2F&usg=AFQjCNH_isM8zx7_A8uWroBanVtDtHP0Tg&bvm=bv.108538919,d.d24)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> And people thought using terrorist attacks as a way to push a totalitarian agenda and perpetual police-state was just tin-foil hattery.

</comment><comment><USER46> Even if they pass the law to ban Tor, you could still use it through an SSH tunnel, which is effectively undetectable.

<comment><USER34> The greater public is not going to know that. However Tor does have obfsproxy:

> obfsproxy is a tool that attempts to circumvent censorship, by transforming > the Tor traffic between the client and the bridge. This way, censors, who > usually monitor traffic between the client and the bridge, will see > innocent-looking transformed traffic instead of the actual Tor traffic.

<comment><USER46> Right, but my point was that the whole point of this legislation would be to prevent terrorists from using Tor. In reality, it would do nothing to stop them. Whoever really wants to have a way of communicating over an encrypted channel will always find a method of bypassing measures like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Accidentally read it as "The first proposal, according to __Le Merde __, would forbid free and shared Wi-Fi during a state of emergency. "

</comment><comment><USER48> As if public Wi-Fi has been somehow related to the attack or its causes.

</comment><comment><USER49> do they think this will stop terrorists?

</comment><comment><USER50> Europe is doing all it can to produce a new Hitler. The anti-Muslim rhetoric can be insane at times, but it's no lie that the imports are from a very different culture and are unlikely to assimilate to a more western one, especially when they outbreed their western counterparts.

What concerns me is that all this money and rage will be spent in reaction to these tragic events that kill either less than 100, around 100, or around 3000 people tops. Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and disease routinely kill far more and yet suggesting we devote effort to solve the engineering challenges of controlling our planet gets tossed aside as just as crazy as the suggestion that it's possible to control immigration with a wall.

<comment><USER51> Look at this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents,_J...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents,_January%E2%80%93June_2015)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents,_J...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents,_July%E2%80%93December_2015)

<comment><USER50> Nothing on those lists contradicts what I said, but thanks for the links.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Socialist regimes have been te most suppressive in peoples history. Think about Pol Pot, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, etc…

Socialism kills [0]. Or a more eloquent and less extreme read would be "The Road to Serfdom" by F. A. Hayek

\---

[0]: [http://jim.com/killingfields.html](http://jim.com/killingfields.html)

<comment><USER53> >Hitler

>Socialist

Just because the Nazis called themselves National Socialists doesn't make them socialists. Communists and socialists were the first the Nazis sent to concentration camps.

<comment><USER54> I think that argument is pretty weak. Many of the millions that the Soviets sent to the gulags were socialists and communists, but that action doesn't make the Soviets or those they imprisoned and murdered not-communist or not- socialist.

Communists and socialists have a long histories of bloody internecine conflicts.

<comment><USER55> _Countries_ have long histories of bloody conflicts, regardless of ideology.

<comment><USER56> Why are you getting downvoted for this?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history)

You'd have to be somewhat detached from the historical record to seriously suggest that all of these, or even a majority, were the result of socialism.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Your Best Work Will Be Invisible - <AUTHOR> https://medium.freecodecamp.com/your-best-work-will-be-invisible-a7896c28d3eb <comment><USER2> "Good design, when it's done well, becomes invisible. It's only when it's done poorly that we notice it." – Jared Spool</comment>


The Rise of Voice Interfaces - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/09/voice-interface-ios/ <comment><USER2> Hate people typing on noisy mechanical keyboards? You're going to love everyone babbling into their devices all the time.

I really don't want to talk to my computer/phone/coffee pot/house. I would rather that software have its normal interface polished and made closer to something that is usable, than have another UI paradigm bolted on that is going to be badly implemented 80% of the time by application developers.

<comment><USER3> To add on to that most of the voice enabled apps have trouble even recognizing speech when it comes to different dialects of English. For example, Southern dialect, "I am fixing to go to the bar, are you ready" would translate to "I am fixing the bar are you there yet?".

<comment><USER4> Plenty of technology exists for adaptation to speaker and/or dialect, it's just not considered particularly sexy. To phrase it in economic terms, you can spend your time doing algorithmic work to improve recognition slightly for your existing English users, _or_ you could just deploy a new system for the 70 million or so affluent, tech-literate South Koreans or the maybe a half a billion or so upwardly mobile Hindi/Urdu speakers.

But, give it a little time and you can expect that authenticated users will be getting speaker adaptation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A UI is basically a trade tongue. We don't speak machine and machines don't speak human.

A UI is a least common denominator that everyone can learn quickly. But it's nowhere near native quality. You can't get much more than simple one liners in trade talk. Good enough for negotiating a chest of cloves, but you'd be hard pressed to explain the difference between marxist-leninist and labour socialist perspectives on international commerce in a trade tongue.

When people hear "voice interface" what they think is a machine that can understand human so we can stop speaking goddamned pidgin all day. That is essentially a turing test, or some subspecies thereof.

I'm somewhat skeptical about this kind of thing. I'm confident that mechanical issues like translating sounds to sentences can be solved (the voice part). The translation of human to machine code… That's a different challenge.

It's an interesting case though, to have out in the wild. Siri and whatnot. An application (as opposed to an average starship computer) has a limited raison d'être, therefor a much tighter search space.

Meanwhile, we _have_ been making consistent progress on turning our clunky pidgins into nice creoles, more elegant and powerful. Machines can understand higher level programming languages that people can get more fluent in. Average humans are generally becoming more computer literate (or fluent in UI, to keep my analogy straight). UIs are getting more intuitive, which basically means closer to human language. The common ground is expanding from just common ground and a wider language is being developed that accommodates us both better.

The question to answer is what part of that common ground is voice is open, I guess. But, I would wager that the common ground we find will not be human sounding anytime soon. It will be a UI metaphor, like the desktop. We will need to learn it.

<comment><USER6> Absolutely right.

We refer to this as the Scarlett Johanssonn problem. Any system that is smart enough to understand what we mean by the Scarlett Johanssonn problem, and the reference to Artificially Intelligent virtual assistants, would itself need to be a strong AI.

We've already solved the problem of translating human to machine code for graphical user interfaces. It's the desktop with the keyboard and mouse. It's the app and the touchscreen.

You're exactly right that the question now is how can we do the same translation for voice-based systems.

So far the approach has been Virtual assistants, which is really hard, see again the Scarlett Johanssonn problem.

We've been working to find the right design/interaction metaphor, and the app metaphor seems to work really well.

Not only is the search space limited, like you mentioned, but users have a more intuitive since of how to interact with the app. When you open a shopping app, you know that you can likely search for something to buy ("I'm looking for a new pair of shoes"). When you interact with a general virtual assistant, that interaction is less clear.

The app model also works for scaling conversational interaction beyond a single context. Individual apps can support their own language for interaction which best suits their function. This of course necessitates design standards, just like we have for GUIs.

The limitations for fully voice-based applications aren't technical at this point. They are design problems with known solutions. The break out for voice will happen when the right form factor comes about with the right UI design.

<comment><USER7> >The break out for voice will happen when the right form factor comes about with the right UI design.

Chris Maury? If so, hoping to see your progress on this with Conversant Labs in the coming year or so. After I read the article I was wondering if I'd see you on HN.

Also my daughter (who also has Stargardt's) found it very inspiring to chat with you at the accessibility meetup.

<comment><USER6> You caught me :). It was great meeting you daughter! She seems to be doing great and taking things on with the right attitude.

Feel free to email me anytime, if you ever need anything: firstname.lastname@example.com. Happy to talk through things in a more private setting than the comments section of HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been thinking about voice interfaces for home automation lately as I've been tinkering with my HA setup, so let me slightly highjack this topic: does anyone have an idea of how to set up a system where you don't have to talk directly into a microphone to get a computer to do stuff? Most current applications (e.g. voxcommando) take care of the 'speech recognition' part just fine, but I don't want to have to go hunt for my phone to turn on the light - I just want to say 'computer turn on light' and have it 'hear' me all the time. But I don't want mics in every corner either, of course.

So a sensitive mic per room, preferably one I could put deploy in severval ways (just put it down, hang at the wall, powered from mains or batteries, ...) that would send whatever it picks up to a central processing server seems the way to go.

Do such things exist? And beyond the hardware, how does one tackle e.g. the privacy problem of having everything you say recorded all the time? I'd love to have a way to say 'computer lights off' when I'm in bed just before I go to sleep, but for obvious reasons I'm hesitant to open myself up to the possibility that any dude with a high-gain antenna would be able to listen in on _any_ sound made there...

<comment><USER9> > So a sensitive mic per room

Definitely exists, but it won't be inexpensive, particularly if you want only one to cover a large room. You'll be looking for a directional microphone, with a roughly 90 degree cone. Having more than one would be a boon, the narrower the cone, the greater the range (in theory).

> how does one tackle e.g. the privacy problem

If you control the hardware doing the voice processing, it's quite simple: don't log the transcripts or save the audio files. If you can have a set of "this is a command" keywords it makes it even easier, since you can shut off the recognition while a conversation is going on, so long as it didn't start with the command keywords. If you don't control the hardware, you have to place your trust in the person who does control the hardware.

<comment><USER10> Doesn't have to be that expensive, you can get one or two cheap stereo mics per room and work on the data. Tascam's portable music/voice recorders support a very wide range of input levels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Until I can have a conversation with a machine–like I would a person–then I feel like voice interfaces will languish in the uncanny valley of HCI. I notice the problem the most when listening to voice commands from a GPS; there are times when the computer gives me an instruction, and I really want to say , "That's not going to happen."

It would be nice if it could pre-emptively start to recompute–like a person navigator would–rather than wait until the GPS detects that I'm not on the course that it thinks I'm going to be on to make a correction that will essentially go the same way. But we can't have a _conversation_; just an exchange of commands. The machine tells the meatbag to do something, the meatbag tells the machine to do something.

Tangentially, I don't _really_ want voice interfaces like in Star Trek/Jarvis; I want a digital doppelgänger. Something that can act on my behalf and convincingly sound/act/respond like I would. I don't want to talk to a machines more, I want to talk to other humans less.

</comment><comment><USER12> There are so many things wrong with this article. Not even mentioning that, unless I am totally screwing up as I am on 0% coffee, the Space Needle is nowhere near Washington DC.

I have a feeling we are going to head into a new era of hype and bubble that is far less defined by hardware, but more by constant promises and probably frequent disappointment about the value of virtual assistants.

</comment><comment><USER13> Show me to buy milk at this opportunity!</comment>